By Pat Flynn on February 11, 2014

Lately, I’ve been experimenting with a number of various blogging strategies to find those little things that are yielding big results, and I wanted to share those little things that are working for me with you today.

These tips should take you less than 5 minutes to implement, and although they may seem small, they pack a huge punch.

Let’s get right to it…

1. The “Little Extra Thing That You Can’t Miss” Headline

I’ve only recently started experimenting with this tactic on my own websites (like in the title of this post), but I’ve been working with a student and the results of this strategy are blowing my mind.

This started when I began to notice “a little something extra” in the titles of blog posts on popular sites like BuzzFeed and ViralNova:

The “I Want Them All, Especially #5” is the something extra, and it seems to be pulling in a ton of extra traffic and shares.

When you read that title, how can you not wonder what #5 is?

Is it worth cluttering up your title for something like this? Well, this strategy doesn’t work for all types of blog posts and it also depends on your audience – but today more than ever, encouraging action and social sharing seems to be taking priority over SEO specific blog post titles.

It’s definitely something worth experimenting with, especially considering that you could have the best content in the world within your post, but if your headline isn’t good enough to get people to read the first sentence, your content may as well not even exist.

2. Start with a Story

I’ve been keeping track over the past 8 months of blog posts that I write which start with a story, and blog posts that I write which do not start with a story.

Unfortunately, there are way too many variables to make any hardcore conclusions about which is better (for example: the topic of the post, the headline, where traffic is coming from, what else is written in the post), but my analytics do paint a little bit of a picture for me.

On blog posts where I do start with a story, the bounce rate (according to Clicky’s(affiliate link – I earn a commission if you buy) definition, which is a user who only visits one single page and leaves within 30 seconds) is significantly less.

Again, there are a lot of variables involved, but even so, this makes complete sense.

We love stories. We can’t help but finish a story that we’ve started, so when you start your post with a story, people are likely to continue reading, and the further down the page they go, the more likely they are to keep going.

Of course, your story should be relevant to the message and transformation you’re trying to get across to your audience, but the point is, if you want to hook ’em right from the start, try starting with a story.

3. Check Analytics. Add Opt-in Forms. Enjoy a bigger list.

This strategy only takes a few minutes, yet hardly anyone follows through with it.

Here’s the step-by-step:

Log into your analytics account and find the 5 most viewed pieces of content on your site over the past 2 months.

Add opt-in forms for your email list on those pages or posts.

Done.

When I learned that I had a ton of traffic visiting my About Page (and actually, it was Derek Halpern in this public video that pointed it out to me), I immediately added opt-in forms to the page, and after a month I experienced a 446% increase in opt-in conversions on that specific page.

This is why I also include an opt-in form on my Income Reports page, because it’s one of the most heavily visited pages on the site too.

Whether it’s a post or a page, it doesn’t matter. Where ever most people end up on your site, that’s where you want to put an opt-in form.

If you have yet to start an email list, then this tip isn’t any good for you right now, but it’s something to keep in mind for later – hopefully sooner than later.

Just in case you need it, below is a link to my tutorial for starting an email list and newsletter:

4. Isolate Super Important Links

Did you notice how I linked to my newsletter tutorial above?

The link is isolated on its own line, and it takes up the entire line too.

That link is an important link within this post, one that can help a lot of people, but also one that, as a by-product of providing value, can potentially lead to an affiliate commission because of a product that I recommend within that post.

I’m giving this link the best chance possible to be clicked on by isolating it the way you see it there.

How so?

The truth is, we cannot control the device people use to consume our content. A computer, a laptop or mobile device – that’s not up to us, it’s up to our audience.

This is something I learned about while attending an eye-opening presentation by Greg Hickman from MobileMixed.com last month at New Media Expo where he talked about optimizing our content for the ever-growing mob of mobile users we have coming to our websites.

Last month, for example, 20.2% of the unique visitors to Smart Passive Income were people on mobile devices. That was a record, and that number will continue to climb.

So how does an isolated link help?

Have you ever tried using your finger to tap on a link on a mobile device, and clicked the wrong link instead?

It happens to most of us, because most websites are not mobile optimized.

If you don’t have a phone, or never mis-tapped before, good for you, but that doesn’t matter. We’re talking about your audience, and they are coming via mobile, and they will “fat-finger” your links if you don’t think about it.

If you’ve ever received any of my emails, you’ll notice that I use the same isolation technique in my copy, and in an email, it’s probably more important to isolate links than within a blog post.

According to Greg, 51% of all email opens happen on a mobile device.

51%!

So you’d better make that link as easy to click as possible on in your emails if you want to get the most out of it.

Also keep in mind that a number of your subscribers could be getting your blog posts via email as well – not just your newsletter and broadcast emails, which is another reason to use this strategy in your blog posts.

It only takes a few seconds to implement, but isolating your important links can mean the difference between someone easily clicking through and going to where they need to go, or someone not finding their way around or getting frustrated and leaving for good.

5. After You Hit Publish, This Step Should Be Next

For the longest time, I would blog until I hit the publish button. Once I hit that button and confirmed that the post I just wrote was up on my website, I considered myself done until it was time to start the next post.

Now I know that writing a post is just half the battle, and hitting the publish button is actually just the beginning of what blogging really is all about.

Blogging isn’t just about publishing content, it’s also about marketing that content and getting it out into the world for people to read, share and take action.

There are, of course, several different ways to market a blog post, and we all seem to understand the importance of sharing our posts on Facebook and Twitter and other social media channels where our audience resides – but even before doing that, there’s one step in between that you should implement that will help get your content in front of more people who have yet to discover you.

I learned this strategy directly from Gary Vaynerchuk who told me live on this podcast interview that I could get so much more leverage out of sharing my posts and podcasts on Facebook if I took a little bit of extra time to create an image with some text and my logo on top of it, and then and only then I should share it on Facebook and other social media platforms.

Since that interview, I’ve been taking a little bit of extra time to create graphics just like Gary described, and the results have been amazing! If you’re on my Facebook page, you would have noticed a number of images that look similar to this:

In the noisy world of social media, graphics like this are more likely to be seen and shared, and since starting this strategy and adding it to my pipeline, Facebook has become the #1 referring website for Smart Passive Income.

If you have a VA or graphic designer on your team with the capability to create images like this, then of course you’d want to outsource this task to them.

But if you don’t have one, or prefer to do these yourself (which is what I do) it’ll take some time to learn how to do it quickly.

At first, it took me 15-20 minutes to complete an image, but now I’m at a point where it’s taking less than 5 – but even if it took 30 minutes, it would still be worth the effort.

If you’re not creating graphics like this, you’re doing yourself, your content, and your audience a total disservice.

The graphic and the text doesn’t have to be very fancy either. Here’s another post I just recently published with some very simple text, but the same kind of results:

Below is a link to a blog post I wrote that will help you find images that you’re allowed to use for this type of situation:

If you’re not into stock images or creative commons and don’t want to waste time finding images on your own, then you can take a screenshot of your own content or website, blur it out and then add text on top of that image instead, like this:

As far as tools to create these images, I use Adobe Photoshop, but you could also use Gimp, Paint.net (windows only), or Pixlr.

And since publishing this post, many commenters have suggested PicMonkey and Canva too!

There’s also a free tool I just found called Fotor, which has a tool specifically used for adding text onto images. If you’d like to upload your own images to Fotor, click on the “add photos” button on the right hand side. It took me a while to find this function.

And lastly, let’s quickly go over the size of the images and the process of uploading them to Facebook.

I typically create an image that is 403×403 pixels square, knowing that the image will not be cropped or cut off when it appears in people’s feeds. I upload the image first, and then add in my status update and link to my content from there.

According to Amy Porterfield, however, Facebook recently made a change giving preference to link-share posts. These types of posts actually show up more often in people’s feeds, and they use a different image size too.

When you paste a link directly into your Facebook status area first, you’ll see some content automatically populate, including the title of your post, a description of it (which you can edit), and a spot for an image that is more rectangular in size. You can click through and select an image that’s already in your post, or you can upload your own. This is where you’d upload a unique image with some text perfectly suited for your Facebook fans, if you don’t have one in your post already.

The size of this image should be 560 pixels wide by 292 pixels tall.

They are weird images sizes, for sure, but I hope this helps you figure this out a little better. Now that I’ve been doing this religiously after each post and podcast episode, the process is getting much quicker, and the results are definitely there.

To Finish Up…

With the exception of the last tip if you’re not familiar with image editing (which makes me feel like a video tutorial on how to quickly add text to images would be very useful – please confirm in the comment section below if you’d like to see that), all of these tips don’t take very much time to implement, but they can yield big results in your blog and online business.

I hope you implement at least one of these strategies, and if you’d like to add anything, or suggest a “5-minute or less” tip of your own, I’m sure the community would be very thankful! Just add that into the comment section below.

If you’ve found value in this post, please click one of the buttons below to share it! Thanks so much, and here’s to you and your blogging success!

If you’re made it this far, you’re awesome! Which tip was your favorite?

Dave McGuire

#5 With the FB stuff. Giving specific dimensions on the pics and how to make it look best is gold. I feel most people skim through their FB news feed now and only pay attention to images that grab them. This will help me do that. Thanks Pat.

Thanks Dave – that one is definitely the one that produces the highest ROI I would say, however it does take a little bit of extra work up front, especially when you’re trying it out for the first time. Thanks Dave!

Number 5 with the specific image really makes a lot of sense. Gary’s book is great, really changes the mindsets of people who read it. Great post Pat, glad you are done with that voodoo flu and have your voice back! 🙂

deinately tip no 3 as it’s easy to implement. Thanks for this great info packed article. The fact that I will return to it time and time again, as I put these ideas into practice, makes me see why you are called SMART!

Hey Pat, those are all pretty kick-butt, my current favorite is #5, although I haven’t implemented it yet. You’ve been doing a great job with it. When I first heard Amy Porterfield’s tip on using images for Facebook posts, my wife and I saw success with that right away, but then Gary’s advice took it to a whole new level. I’m really looking forward to incorporating that into our work. Thanks for a great article!

Thanks for the info Pat. How do you make your posts look so nice in the first place though? I’ve been using Byword on my Mac, which allows me to write in Markdown, and export / publish directly to the site in HTML. I found the WordPress WYSIWYG text editor to be horrendous, and anything but what you see is what you get. Any tips there?

Well, I write in byword, and then I take a few moments after exporting to look through and brush it up because it doesn’t come over perfect, and yeah I can’t stand writing directly in the WP WYSIWYG editor anymore either. I preview the post a lot too after I finish writing just to make sure it looks okay.

Awesome, I’m sure you recommended that somewhere on your site, but I’m still rather new. Muchas Gracias

Dan Shure

Hey Pat – awesome write up, and I’ve been trying out the “Upworthy” like titles on some of my own things as well as for clients.

Like any tactic, I think it will work for a while because it’s still new and surprising, but may have a shelf life – and perhaps readers will start clicking shorter titles in the future. I’m a huge title junkie 🙂

Hi Pat, I just started my blog in January I have zero subscribers, zero fb fans and twitter followers. I have about 5 posts and I am posting each week. I have an opt in form etc. how long will it take to start getting subscribers? Can you offer any advice for the first 6 months of starting out? Thanks!

Sue Detweiler

David,
I just followed you :). Be encouraged, build relationships, stay the course….

Teri Smyth

Me too. Yep. You got another follower:)

rahul

Hey I am rahul I .am also blogger I really like your post. Also you check my blogpost hope its helpful for you.

David, as Sue said, stick with it. It takes time. It’s slow at first but once it starts building it’s a bit of a snowball effect. One way to potentially grow a bit quicker is to use sites like Reddit – as long as you’re sharing useful information then you’re benefiting others. Best of luck. For what it’s worth, I’m still working on growing several of my sites….it’s slow but I’m definitely starting to see results from a couple.

Edward BYRNE

Watch out with Reddit. I had a nasty aggressive reaction from a moderator implying all bloggers were scum abusing Reddit to get traffic.

Pratik Unadkat

I definitely agree with this. Reddit can make your site bloom as well as it’s exact opposite. So I definitely would take some caution there if you are just starting out. It can be pretty raging community lol.

Thanks for the warnings, you are right that it’s best to be careful, no sense spending the time and effort if it will be counterproductive.

Allen Underwood

In all fairness, half the people that post on Reddit are exactly what the moderator implied they were! Not saying that you are or were. That’s why I think it’s super important that anything you share anywhere (be it Reddit, twitter, facebook, etc) is more than just link fodder. It needs to provide some real value. If you do that and you still get slammed by a moderator, so be it. You can only do what’s morally right on your end.

Also, I would add: Think about the quality of traffic. Reddit Traffic is just the same a Digg and StumbleUpon was / is (im going back 5 years here!).. both of these sites were great if you valued hits to a website (and only hits). But the conversion sucked and the bounce rate went through the roof. And recently on my tests Reddit traffic is just the same – high volume / low yield. I would much prefer to have 100 engaged visits per day than 1000 ‘thrill seekers’ any day.

Allen Underwood

I completely agree with this, with an exception though. Generally speaking I think you’re probably right in that depending on which group you’re targeting on Reddit your traffic can be utter garbage. However, a couple of friends and I started a podcast on software development / programming and we’ve posted a few articles to the appropriate sub-groups on reddit and have actually gotten some decent interaction and feedback. Do we get some high bounce rates? Yes, but that’s really to be expected when people are visiting a page with the sole intent of reading the article that you linked to on Reddit. However, the fact that we’ve gotten some real interactions from other programmers out there is excellent, especially in such a crowded market (stackoverflows of the world). So again, I agree that if you’re not very careful about which sub-group you’re targeting, traffic can be useless…just need to make sure you’re not just trying to boost your page hits – those don’t matter anyways, as you said. I figure if you get 1 or 2 loyal followers from a good Reddit post, then it’s worth it’s weight in gold, even if you get a ton of bounces from the others. Just my thoughts…

Very good points Allen – thanks for sharing. It’s also worth noting that in the past high bounce rates reportedly effect your organic SEO. Although I’ve never really subscribed to that school of thought and even more so now that there’s so much emphasis on ‘social signals’ as an indication to contents popularity (and not back links). For the benefit of others reading this I would say: pay attention to time on site and new vs. returning as a metric – if they are too low then you’ve got some work to do.

Allen Underwood

My pleasure man. I find SEO to be one of the toughest nuts to crack, period. I’m sure it yields great results but it is tiring stuff. Social also kills me – there are so many channels to try and keep up with- Facebook Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn…it seems like the list keeps getting longer!

Congrats on starting your blog David! Everyone has offered great advice to answer your question. On top of all of that, I would simply say, just keep providing great content, and making sure to connect with the right people – influencers in your niche that you can create a relationship with, and you could perhaps offer some of your top ideas for content on their sites as a guest post. I have a guest post lined up here on SPI about someone who built her list to over 1000 people even before she launched her blog, and those strategies I’m sure would be helpful to you as well. You should see that post soon! Cheers David, and best of luck!

David

Hi Pat, many thanks for coming back to me, as well as everyone else! Look forward to that upcoming post Pat. I have to say in relation to top quality content, SPI is the only site I ever found where the content is completely unique and mind blowing to what else I read online. Thanks again.

David, others have given you great advice in this comment thread, so I just wanted to encourage you, as someone who started out very similarly and now (26 months in) gets 100+ subscribers a day – implement the suggestions, stick with it, and you WILL get there!!!

I had so little traffic during my first six months it was thoroughly depressing and I almost quit, thinking it wasn’t going anywhere. But gradually, gradually as I kept posting, more people began to find my site from searches, etc.

Also, one thing I did at the beginning to at least get the ball rolling was scrimp together my pennies and spend about $100/month on paid Facebook ads leading people to an e-mail opt-in page, where I offered them a free e-book to download if they subscribed. This at least got me SOME early subscribers so I didn’t feel like I was publishing into the void 🙂

David

Hi Shayna, thanks, that is encouraging. Will look at the fb thing but don’t have that sort of budget, but sure I can do something with it. I’m just going to focus on publishing awesome content once a week and do some of the suggestions mentioned on here!

I also started mine and have zero followers. I still need to add those things up though.I can’t find your blog in your disqus.

César

I´ve been there David, here´s what I did. First I created a facebook campaign to get likes for a couple of months, and started posting the link to my landing page about 2 or 3 times a week on my fanpage. Then I stopped that campaign and started another one sending fb traffic to my landing page, and boom, all of a sudden I got almost 30000 fans and over 2700 subscribers. Hope it´s useful. Cheers! Greetings from Barcelona!

David

Thanks Cesar I will try this out

Juan Carlos

Cesar, interesting way to do it, did you implement that campaign for content in Spanish or in English?

David u’ve got to put in the work meaning read all the great content Pat has put out there here! It is an education but you can do it if you are offering something of value/interest.
Good luck!

Tomboy Tarts

Hey David – keep on keeping on. We’ve been at it almost 3 years and we’re still learning everyday because we don’t create a lot of content like Pat did. It’s best to grow organically and set your site and business for long term success. To be honest, we are still ‘struggling’ today because we are niche. It’s tough but you gotta stay strong and committed.

Totally! That’s the person time to REALLY connect with your target audience, and make them all feel special because there are so few! It’s a lot hard to do that and reach out to individuals when the list starts to grow bigger. Take advantage of being small!

Great tips as usual! I have to give the isolating links and FB tip a try – I’m the worst FB user, on it only now & then and can’t figure out how to post things so they show up in my business page feed rather than my personal. Have to take some time to work on that…

Speaking of “after you post,” do you mind sharing what your steps are today, after hitting ‘publish’ on a blog post? Of course share it on Facebook, Tweet about it.. Notify your e-mail list, potentially, etc.. What about pinging? Do you notify (automatically) any places around the web about your new, hot off the press, content?

Good stuff Pat! I’ve been noticing the trends on different blogs myself. I am just a humble fishing guide that finds customers through the web, but your strategies are always interesting and helpful. I have a plan and hope to convert my business to the “passive” variety and hopefully I do a good enough job to warrant an interview.

*Click! Click! Click!* That’s the sound of lightbulbs going on in my head, thanks to this post!! Just from reading this, I’ve identified at least three tasks that I can implement NOW to help our website and podcast reach more people. Thanks once again, Pat, for awesome, usable advice!!

Peace & Veggies,
Larissa

Jason

Excellent post! I love #5 – so obvious yet so few do it, including myself. Thanks!

For images, I would recommend going bigger. If people are viewing your content on their Desktop and they click on it, it will expand to as large as their monitor is (which can be thousands of pixels). Facebook has changed their image size guidelines twice in the past year, and each time it has been to require larger images.

403 x 403 and 560 x 292 are good minimums, but you should try as much as possible to create images that are larger than that (while keeping the same proportions). For most images, it shouldn’t require any extra effort to make them a little bigger.

Ha! I love #3. It’s amazing how LITTLE changes on stuff you already have can make such an impact. But yet, we always seem to complicate our life by doing “new things” that require MUCH more energy to bring as many “actions” (in this case, subscriptions).

Thanks for pointing that out, Pat!

Joel

Randy Wilburn

Thanks for this great Blog Post Pat! I wanted to add http://picmonkey.com as a great FREE image editing tool. I remember the podcast with GaryV and his advice. I like the way you implemented that. I plan to do the same. I would welcome a tutorial about Social Media Image creation, manipulation, and usage. 🙂 Thanks again for all you do. RW

Awesome stuff Pat.
It’s cool to read this and through reading it your shares went up from like 40-61. Haha anyways…
I am definitely going to put the picture/artwork to use.
I was actually hoping that you would share a post like this, awesome stuff!! 😀

I’d also add, about your “403×403 pixels square” “because it doesn’t clip” that I’m not sure it’s a good idea. I feel that people are MORE likely to click if the picture is clicked. No brains like incomplete information. Anyone’s thoughts on that?

Interesting…I do indeed click on most images with some of the text hidden to read the whole text….but I’ve never clicked through to the content. And, I often think “amateur”…but then again…maybe I’m just a negative person at heart.

Amber

Another slam dunk, Pat! I’ve been creating graphics for my posts using PicMonkey and I’m loving the response. They also make it easy to share on Pinterest, which has become my #1 referrer of traffic over the last two months.

Always great, Pat! I wasn’t sure where to send the inspirational article that you asked for in the email – so i messaged you on FB. 🙂 I included a special request. Ebook is always done… and doing final edits to my podcast. Grateful you are out there guiding the way!

Some great tips here Pat! I’ve just started my own blog and didn’t know where to get any photos from so I just put a status on my Facebook asking if anyone was a photographer and was interested in letting me use their photos for free in exchange for a link to their site and I got loads of great photos.

Pat,
You were not kidding about actionable items! Wow! In Mississippi terms….Dang!! That was a fantastic post! Going straight to Evernote on that one! Thanks again for all you do to help your community! Have a super rest of the week!
Scott

🙂 Awesome Pat! You could start one of your Podcasts off with “Pat likes to say dang!”…:-)
Thanks man!

Luis

I believe that this post is EXTRAORDINARY.
Congratulations Pat, and thank you

Melissa AuClair

Thank you Pat! I’m going to start working on #5- and a video tutorial would be great 🙂

ken

Another great post pat. Nice especially The first one. I see a lot of entertainment and gist websites use it a lot and it always pique my interest But i have never thought of using it on my own blog. Great one. Little one this post do a full analysis on how you make $50k a month blogging: http://www.thetrafficpolice.com/pat-flynn-makes-55k-a-month-blogging/ you keep raising the bar

databanks

Excellent post Pat!

Bekah

These were all really helpful, and things I have been noticing myself recently! Thanks for all the great info!

Outstanding post. So glad to see you reference and link to past epic posts, like the one on starting a newsletter, which helped me navigate that process. Thanks again……….

Semaj

Awesome post Pat! I definitely want to see a video tutorial on how to quickly add text to pictures

Peter Chodelka

Great tips – I have been using tip N.4 for my affiliate website (http://www.pozicka.sr) and it works very well. I isolate the active link not only to another line, but I actually add some background to it and make it super visible to readers. Sometimes, I even put the button there so you can not miss that. It is a bit aggressive, but it works. It all depends in the theme of the website though.

Just a tip to all readers out there too, I use my iPhone to add texts to images. It is so simple and literally takes less than 5 minutes. I use an app called Phonto and they have beautiful fonts and you can customise anything and everything. For someone who struggles to use Photoshop, this is a great alternative. And it’s free! 🙂

Great tips, Pat! I have been implementing Gary’s tip from your podcast chat with him too, and I love it! I love using PhotoShop, but I can get sidetracked playing around with the image, and need to discipline myself to get it done!
I will try your tip #1 in my next post – The idea is cute, SEO friendly, and fun, for sure! Thanks again for your wonderful, helpful suggestions!

And if you’d like a professional to design your images for you, you can send them to me. 🙂

Thanks for a great post, Pat!

Natasha Solovieff

Just perfect timing. I’ve just started my blogs on omgparenting.com Actuallly have noticed from you and Ryan Lee that stories are great. And of my 4 blogs, the one with a story has gotten the best response. And, I was checking my posts on movile and instantly saw I need to change some things. Love the tip about isolating the link!! I find I tres enjoy doing content, so these marketing tips are, well, thank you thank you!

LadyJevonnahEllison

Thank you Pat! I’ve just started listening to your ASK PAT podcast and they have been hugely helpful. Also, just finished up your ebooks the smart way, and I have to say that the advice about the “magic button” was awesome! Quick question: Would you still recommend using ejunkie with a wordpress blog? Thanks!

Great tips! I just added opt in boxes to my popular posts. I’m wondering why you don’t include your graphics inside your posts so people can easily share them on Pinterest. It isn’t just for recipes and interior decorating you know! 🙂

Melinda Todd

The images with text are super important because Pinterest is where a lot of us are storing things we want to read again or reference again. It is my #1 traffic generator now and I’m not a crafter or foodie blog! I’ve already pinned this post because I know I need to save it to come back to again. I always love the details of your posts. They’re easy to read and understand.

Excellent info, Pat. I agree with Randy- I’m an avid picmonkey user. And you’re right- just that little extra “something” in the title keeps readers hanging on a bit longer. I may test out this strategy on my blog, too. Thanks for the tips!

Excellent post Pat. Im going to start testing out #1 in a few of my posts.

christiantoto

More great material! Quick question … when you’re adding text to your images, should you use the same font each time out for consistency and branding sake? Or can you get creative each and every time you do this (like adding a spooky font for a story about your fear of x, y or z?

Great one Pat. This is totally actionable (like you always are). I’m heading off to analytics right now to find those hot pages I can put an opt-in on.
And ‘YES’ to the vid offer. One technique most vid’s I’ve watched don’t include is how to put text over darker images.

As always, excellent content. A couple of things I’d like to share…
1. A tip! I heard this on the Entrepreneur on Fire podcast, episode 449 – there’s a utility out there called Canva that seems to be pretty awesome for creating graphics like you mentioned in tip #5 – requires very little designer know how, is quick and easy. Could be just the ticket for getting that graphical facebook image out there

The second – I love your tip on the links – especially concerning spreading them out on mobile devices. My only thing I”d like to point out is your text isn’t super-obvious that it’s a link. I know this is a little old school and doesn’t flow with your new site look (which I really like), but most people associate the blue with links, or underlined words – so maybe it’d be worth underlining your maroon colored words to call them out a bit? Just a suggestion.

As always, I appreciate the time and effort. I always learn something from your posts.

Sam Mangum

This has to be one of your best Pat! honestly, you had me hooked literally from the title alone. I’m still planning out my blog, but I can guarantee you I will implement these ideas!!!

I think it should be getpaint.net instead of paint.net? paint.net brought up all sorts of weird stuff for me.

Great post Pat, that interview with Gary Vaynerchuk was one of my favorites of yours, am about to go read jab jab jab right hook actually! Working on adding images and infographics to just about everything these days!

Do you have an image of your own logo stored on your computer somewhere? Perhaps there’s a direct link to it on your website. If not, you could try to save the logo on your website to your computer first, and then in any of the image editors you can upload that image on top of whatever file you’re working on. For the logos, it’s best if its a transparent .png so that the background is transparent and it can nicely overlay on top of any other image. If it’s a .jpg, sometimes the background of the logo doesn’t match the picture you’re placing it on and it doesn’t look right.

Pat, the idea of a video tutorial on how to add text to images would be fantastic! Please do one, I would very much like to learn that myself. I can’t tell you how timely this post was for me to read. Such valuable info. Thanks for all you do!

Please check Pixlr.Com/editor I use it a lot. Very practical and simple to use.

Jeffon Seely

Great insights Pat. I’ve just begun my website and have been seeing a steady amount of traffic. I have to admit that I implemented basically all your strategies and continue to refer back to your site daily to ensure I am doing what the pros do lol. Anyway, thank you the time and energy you put into your craft, it is appreciated by thousands.

Great tips Pat! And you’re right- the last part of that headline really DOES make me curious. Also I have totally noticed the images and text you’ve have been using and I really do love it- very shareable indeed. For anyone who does videos like me, taking the audio and making a podcast from the video really does only take about 5 minutes extra to export and upload to libsyn and paste the code into the blogpost- after all the work that went into creating the information, and given that people like to get their information from different platforms, I feel this is HUGE way to make my time for each post I make go that much farther.

Thanks for all the hard work you put into sharing these great tips with us. I really appreciate your work and I definitely need to add these latest tips to my strategy.

Would you mind sharing what tool or solution you use to create your graphics that you use within your posts. I’m referring to the first image with the red arrow pointing at the title and also the ‘paper tear with shadow effect”. Is there a simple tools that does this or is this done in photoshop?

By the way – congrats on your site re-design. I absolutely love your new design. So clean, simple, responsive and just perfect 🙂

Wow, that was the fastest comment reply I’ve ever received. Thanks for the link will check it out.

Was thinking that it could perhaps be useful for your site to have some kind of “sitemap” page (but not your traditional boring sitemap list of pages), but rather some kind of visual index / guide to help readers find so many of your golden posts (that are in your archive), like the one you just shared with me.

I know you’ve got your “Start Here” page, which is great. I guess it would be a similar page that resembles the index of a book highlighting various posts based on topic. Just an idea. I can visualise it in my head 🙂

These are such great tips thanks, BUT the graphics thing always has me stuck. Do you know of any (preferably free) resources that actually TEACH how to make the graphics like what you use? I understand some things about GIMP but am pretty lost when it comes to creating something like you did with the artist podcast – which is really great btw.
Thanks for all the great info and inspiration Pat – I’m up at 5am trying to make this thing happen for the past 6 weeks, and after having the blog up for 2 years I’m seeing a big difference.

Shelby

This is a very helpful article. I started my Health Coaching practice almost a year ago, have a custom built website and a blog. Mostly I have used FB, but trying to learn Pinterest now. It has been very slow! I have so many dreams! One of which is to begin monetizing my blog. But I do get overwhelmed easily with all there is to do and learn. I really want to bust out with the FB followers but seems to just have friends and family at this time. I am going to work hard on the last tip!! I have been learning how to create good images using pic monkey but I use power point more. Thanks for the sizing info and also I would love the tutorial videos you suggested! Thanks for your info!

mavtrevor

Awesome tips especially with the headlines, a headline should be catchy to raise the curiosity of the visitor to want to read the article. your headline should be good enough to get people to read the your content.

Yes! I remember your Gary V podcast also and was thinking to myself that you’ve taken on his advice. When I received your email promoting ‘selling your artwork online’ podcast, your graphic certainly grabbed my attention and made me want to listen to what you had to say. It works exactly the same when I’m doing a Google search for a recipe, I’ll almost always choose the one with a picture next to it. I endeavor to put these tips into action. Many thanks, as always!

Hey Pat, thanks for the tips. I have most of them in place. Sometimes a fresh title can take some thought, but as you say it’s worth it. I’m going to add a graphic to my Facebook page now and share my post. Cheers 🙂

Bryan Zimmerman

Hi Pat, Great post. I want to add one thing, as well as offer feedback.
1) an easy way to create the graphics you are talking about is in Keynote (for Mac users). Keynote has been some of the best money I have spent in my business is very easy to use and move text and do a lot of cool effects very simply. I then use Skitch to take a picture of it and upload. Very quick and easy.

2) On my iphone4, when I click on your newsletter optin link by optinskin, the pop-up box doesn’t allow me to click on the subscribe button because it is just a little too tall. Not sure how many people are still on iphone4’s, but I thought I would let you know just in case. seems like it would be a simple css fix.

Great post and I would also be down with a video – I love your videos. Also there’s a great comment below about signing up to the stock photo websites emails for freebie photos to be used for later. I think I may do that right now!

Matt

I would love to see a video tutorial on image editing, Thanks Pat for all the great info

Fabulous tips Pat and super excited to see you switched to Disqus with the new theme.

Brian Dean

This rocks Pat. I especially love the tip of putting important links on their own line.

I have to admit that I clicked on that link!

Only later did I realize what happened (and I was on a Desktop, not a mobile device. I can only imagine that it’s even more powerful for people that read SPI on a mobile device).

renee

This article was so awesome–I took notes! I just created a picture using pic monkey and 560×292 made my picture look very squashed. But I did it anyway. I added it to my Renee’s Kitchen Facebook page with a question about what should I name this meatless, plant based, vegan lunch. (I must say I made this for lunch and it was awesome.)

Just in case, make sure you don’t take a square-ish picture and squash it down to fit those dimensions. You’ll want to size and crop to that size so the image doesn’t look disproportionate or too stretched one way or another.

renee

ohh, thanks. My stuffed vegan mushroom looks ok–but I think a bit of trial and error might be in order! My numbers are up! I have now what I usually have in the evening . . . Yeah!

renee

Today I posted using all of your tips! And I have had a full morning of engagement! It did take a long time–but I made a list so each time it should be easier and easier.

Sandy

Yes, Pat, please do a video on how to add text images. Specifically, I would really like to know what plugin you use to post your images/description/player and button for show notes for each podcast episode. They are beautiful. I WANT THAT!!!

#1: I’ll try it. Sounds good.
#2: You are a cheater Pat 😛 Good story needs more than 5 minutes 😉
#3: I need more traffic.
#4: It’s one of the obvious things someone else has to point out, because I wouldn’t have think of it. Thanks.
#5: Yeah, I know. Yeah, I don’t :/

#1: Sweet!
#2: Most stories we tell friends and people we meet are less than 5 minutes – do the same, but on your blog instead.
#3: You should set this up NOW before the traffic comes in. I only wish I did it sooner. You don’t need a certain amount of traffic to make your page the highest converting page it can be.
#4: You’re welcome.
#5: Because…?

Great tips Pat, as always!! I’m definitely going to try these out on my little blog. I especially like the facebook pic tip.

Best Mom Products

I love the graphic one! I just discovered Canva where you can design your own graphics, upload photo’s. It is soo easy to use (and free unless you want premium elements) – just a little addictive for us pinterest-creative types 😉

renee

have you tried it for info graphics? I spent a while then went back to pic monkey!

Best Mom Products

i have – sometimes it doesn’t cooperate well but i’ve been able to do what i need easily and quickly. pic monkey looks cool, too. i’ll have to compare 😉 thanks for the tip

For iPad owners, there’s an awesome vector image app called Inkpad. Very easy to create and share images – much easier than learning Photoshop or Gimp. It’s limited of course, but it is pretty amazing what it does and more than enough for slapping some text on a picture. Not sure if it exists for Android or Windows.

marianacarlos

I really enjoyed reading this post, Thanks for sharing your Blog with others. You really share valuable information.Flowers To Mumbai

PIN

Great tips as always!
However, there is one point that i am not sure if it is mentioned in any of the comments before:
Whenever we post something on our Facebook Page, it is not automatically shown to the feeds of everyone who has liked our Group. We sometimes need to “boost” that post. That’s how Facebook started to make more money lately…
Facebook does not allow images with more than 20% of text in them and I think that an image like the first one in #5 , wouldn’t be approved by FB to get boosted and finally shown to everyone on the group.
how everyone else is dealing with that…?
Thanks for all the great tips Pat!

You’re right though, not all of our fans see all of our status updates, but the ones who do are the ones who are most engaged – and how do you increase engagement and be favorable in Facebook’s edgerank algorithm? You create engaging posts that stand out that people share, like and comment on. And one way to do that is by creating images like what’s mentioned in #5 🙂

PIN

I agree 100% Pat!
It’s always hard in the beginning though when you don’t have that many followers.
Thanks again for the great advice!

KMKrueger

These are awesome tips. Number 1 is my favorite. It’s so simple, but so effective.

Jeremy Carter

Great points, Pat. I like what you said in #1 about getting people’s interest using smart headlines vs. cluttering up the headline. If no one clicks or no one reads it, then it doesn’t really matter, right?

Do you think these kinds of headlines will reach a point where they carry less effect? It seems that more and more folks are wising up to using these kinds of headlines (some going the dramatic Upworthy route). Will we become immune? Maybe time will tell, but I was curious what you thought.

Pat, thanks for the great tips. I especially like your tips about creating images to share on Facebook, and I’ve saved this article so I can start implementing this tip immediately. I also love the opt-in suggestion for the highest read areas of the blog.

Bernardo Pina

Dude, your tip to put a subscription form on the most viewed articles of the blog have REALLY improved my subscription rate. I was getting an average of 3/day, now i’m getting something about 10/day. Thanks for this.

Hi Pat- This post is fantastic. I am going to begin to apply several of these to my blog posts. Also, thanks to the rest of this blog community for the helpful comments as well!

Sandra Connery

Yes, please do a post on how to put text on images. Also, what is the plugin ( I assume it’s a plugin) that you use to put your podcast image, player and links in when you post a new podcast to your page? It’s gorgeous and I would love to use something like that. Will you share?

Hi Pat, thanks for this! Super helpful as a novice blogger. Yes, a video tutorial on how to add text to images would be really helpful.

Jason H.

Hi Pat,
Great post. I am wondering about tip #5 how you add a different image to your facebook link than the thumbnail. How do you add the custom image in facebook to the link, without uploading the image first and then the link, like you first described. I am not seeing that option when I put a link into my posts.
Thanks

This is really confusing for a lot of people – including myself. Sometimes when I paste a link it just shows the thumbnail, but not a full width image. If it shows the thumbnail, that means that the image on your post is too small. You could either change the image on your post first, OR you can actually click to upload a new image on that thumbnail, and if it’s the right size it’ll switch to full width link-share style before you post. Thanks to Amy Porterfield (http://www.amyporterfield.com) for helping me answer this question!

Jason H.

I think I understand now. Instead of just pasting your link in the text box and letting Facebook get the thumbnail, you would upload an image and have the link in the text box that describes it. Is that what you mean? With that being said, which do you think is more effective? I feel like I look at regular photos only more than link-share photos.

Jennifer Blake

I’m looking to hire someone that will build my website for me. And by that I mean getting advertisers on the site, generating traffic etc. The only thing I want to be responsible for is the actual blog. Does anyone hire themselves out to do this?

Adam

Thanks for this post. Very helpful

Carla MusarraLeonard

Great info. Thanks! I would love to see a tutorial on FB images. I am using WordPress and just started blogging in November. I still have so much to learn, so posts like these are particularly helpful to me. Thanks again 🙂

willratliff

Pat –

Great tips as always. I’d love to see a video on using images and text. I’ve used Pixlr some, but could definitely use some pointers. Keep delivering up the great content! I’m already making an image for my next blog post that I just finished up today!

Brent

As always really good stuff Pat. Definitely going to give Fotor a try as I love using images for quotes. A vid tutorial would be awesome.
Cheers, Brent

Thanks for the excellent suggestions! I’m a bit confused, though, about the Facebook link image. You recommend an image that is 560 x 292, however in Amy’s article you linked, she recommends uploading an image that is 1200 x 1200.

Hi Pat. I only discovered your podcast a few weeks ago. I am listening at a rate of two a day. It’s inspiring stuff. Keep up the good work.

Denise

I just did it on Twitter: 30 ways Visual Art can help your students be better writers. Number 6 is my favorite. http://bit.ly/1bwfOnp #edchat #literacychat
Interested to see if it has a effect. You rock Pat!!!

Katina Vaselopulos

Great post Pat! Found it in twitter…behind my emails! Always something to learn from you! Fiing in my Blog folder for easy access. I would love an image tutotial! Like David, I have no subscribers, and the ones I have do not come over, event though they tell me they like what I pos. What kind of useful content should I be sharing in Twitter when I write about life as a journey, virtue, food, persistence, living in the moment…And how can I turn a wisdom quatation into a tweeable one, where readers can click and send to Twitter? Thanks in advance! Happy belated Valentine’s Day!!!!!

Awesome post as always, Pat. Found this post while trying to research themes for my new website, for which I’m currently using a simple “Coming Soon” plugin.

I especially love the tip about blurring out a screenshot of your image and adding text on top. One tool I love for this sort of thing that’s absolutely free is Skitch by Evernote (http://www.evernote.com/skitch). This tool makes it a breeze to blur out private info or an entire image and add cool Headline- or plain text-style text.

Also, loved the tip about isolating super important links. I never thought about it until you mentioned it, but I do frequently find myself clicking the wrong links on my smart phone! This tip is worth the entire 5 in my opinion 🙂

Quick question, Pat. I just noticed this. In the image above for “How to Sell Artwork” and the “December Income Report” you leave a link within the post itself. I’m assuming this is because Facebook won’t allow you to add an image AND a link. But in the blurred out image, you let the link serve as the image.

Here’s my question:

Is there a benefit to leaving the link within the post as opposed to letting the link itself serve as the image?

It seems to me that inserting the link in the post is a little too “pushy” or “market-y” and I wouldn’t want to come across as too aggressive; it almost begs for attention, whereas letting the link serve as the image seems more professional.

Pat would love to see a tutorial on image editing! Have you been using images in Twitter? Are they working as well as Facebook ones?

adampreiser

I really like the last tip, number 5 because I haven’t been doing that. I thought it was going to be something different. Let me propose a 6th tip which I am not sure if you are doing. That is adding all the social metadata to your post to control what is shared then someone shares your post. I think this is HUGE and is that extra step I don’t see people doing. For me I would rather choose the exact image and text that shows on Facebook, not the other way around.

For instance this post, I choose to share it and wether intentional or not, Facebook choose the image and text from this post. See the attached image.

Anyway, there are some plugins for wordpress that make setting this info easy. I use a paid one, but their are plenty of free ones.

A video tutorial would be awesome for uploading an image. Thanks Pat. I’ve been reading your blog on/off for the past year. Now, that I’m on maternity leave and really have a HUGE WHY to make passive income , I have been all over ysour site and as always you over deliver on everything. Thanks for doing what you do so well

I especially like tip #5 as this is something I just started doing recently as well too. I normally use to only write my blog posts and publish them and be done with it. Now I take that content, create an image for it, put my logo on it, and then share it on all my social profiles. I definitely think it helps.

I get a lot more engagement on my social profiles if I include an image. People are just a lot less likely on Facebook to click your posts unless there is a image that catches their attention.

Thanks for sharing these other ideas. I’ll have to play around with a few of them.

Alexis “Milano” Santin

I just tried your the #1 #2 #3 and #5 for my last blog post yesterday. It worked like a charm.

Your blog post is so specific and clear, it’s easy to implement your advises. So Thank you very much for that. It makes it easy for us to act.

you’re awesome …thanks for the graeat tips! yes, please include a little vid on how to add text to images for those of us that don’t have photoshop (and don’t want my designer working on the small stuff), cheers!

Mike King

Thanks Pat;

I have been getting great results from facebook after a blog. But now I can see the importance of a lovely image.

Another Great post as always Pat. I love all the tips you shared especially the headlines and subscription forms tips. I take my time to craft my headlines because I have been opportuned to see how much effect it can have on a post virality.
Thanks for sharing this with us.

Alan

Thanks Pat for a very informative post.

Uncoordmommy

I already do the image with text thing for pinterest but tips on how to quickly create an image that can easily be sized for pinterest and Facebook would be awesome! It seems Facebook is more horizontal and pinteredt more vertical. I have time to make one image but making two might be pushing it 🙂

I’ve been your follower since the security guard training site and I have learned a lot from you. I quit my fulltime job and I am now doing affiliate marketing. It’s my main source of income now. I’m not making a lot but it’s okay to live a simple and decent life here in the Philippines. Thank you very much.

This post is very helpful.. Thank you for all your help. You have changed my life.

Carlo

Natalya Golovanov

Hello, Pat. Thank you for another great post. Yes, a video tutorial you suggested above would be terrific. Thank you.

Hi Pat, am I too late to congratulate you on your blog? but congratulations!! I love your writing style, it’s full of art, keep it up!

Emma Weise

Pat… awesome post!
No 5 had a considerable impact on me.
I took your advice, and edited the feature image – and then I thought I’d pin it.

It was only when I saw this image (see attached) next to some of my previous posts – that I realised just what a difference it makes to put a few minutes into making a special image for my post!

The visual storytelling one is a LOT more interesting and “Pin-worthy” than the other two!!!

It really is a simple tip that can make a HUGE difference to the work I produce!
Thank you so much!

Emma Weise

I thought I’d do a follow on…
I was so taken aback by the difference a great image makes… that I ammended the other two… now, the board looks a lot more powerful! Still quite a few images /posts to add to it though 😉

Pat – I’d love for you to do a tutorial on creating great images. Thanks for the great content!

Angel

I like tip 1 too and am going to try it with my next post. Just a quick question. Would it still work if you didn’t have a big subscribers?

crew03

Would love a video about adding text to images. Great post with very useful info – thanks!

Craig

I started a blog last year but only started properly beginning of January. I used some material on this site and still do, I am making money too, not much but more than what my savings would get in interest so its got to be worth it! cheers for all the tips. http://www.unlockworldtv.com

JoJo Fildi

There is just so much to learn, but it’s the simple things that can often make the biggest impact. Thank you so much Pat for sharing these tips.

Cynexis Media

We have a graphics department who does our images, but we also recommend the free website picmonkey.com for creating your own graphics quickly and easily.

Frank Eriksen

David – Believe what everyone is saying. Stay with it. Find your voice and then your audience will find you. You can do this. I low you can!

Successful Living

David – Believe what everyone is saying. Stay with it. Find your voice and then your audience will find you. You can do this. I know you can!

This is some really good advice.. it’s good finding a site with real advice and helpful tips, it not only helps me as a reader but you as a writer because I’ll want to share it and comment like i’m doing now! I’ve started a couple of sites and blogs recently, haven’t had any serious views so to speak, but It’s getting there!

I’m going to try adding the images to posts like you suggested! Thanks again!

Katie Lake

As a general rule, I always include a picture in my post with text. It makes for good “pinteresting”. After I started doing that I noticed Pinterest became my number two referral site. (Twitter is still first.) that made me a total believer so I edited some old posts the same way then pinned them. This is especially effective for tutorials. Two my top pinned posts are for making a magnolia wreath and sewing a shirt from an old button up.

Hey Patt, please help me.
I started a blog on October 22. It grew and looks like it has reached a plateau. It has stopped growing…or may be it is too slow a growth to perceive.
This is a blog which teaches nothing but shares amazing science stuff that elicits awes…like omg facts…but a little detailed. I love doing this as I learn random amazing things everyday while researching for posts. I post one article each day. The streak has continued and I have 139 articles up in 139 days.
Although I never wished to make money out of it. I just wanted to know if it is really possible to make a living (nothing big, just enough to sustain) out of something like this? I just can’t figure a revenue model that would work for me.
Sometimes I start looking at blogs that teach things and have areas where they can expand to…like make courses for people. I see them working really well and I think of emulating that. But Why would people listen to me if I start teaching science to them. The’d listen to their professors. Also, if I leave this and start a blog that teaches photoshop, this good hard-work put in by me will go to waste. Is there a way I can make something out of my present science blog?

Alec Roger Wines

Pat,
By far one of your best blog posts yet. You had me super excited about all of these ideas while I was reading through. When I got to number 5, I loved the idea so much that I started thinking of how I needed to start doing it. But what really got me is that after you presented that idea, you went above and beyond in explaining how to do it! I am terrible at graphic design and such, but all of the content you provided in this post is going to make implementing that strategy a whole lot easier for me. I can’t thank you enough. I love what you’re doing with the blog, and I’m so happy that I discovered you and your blog because now I can start building a business that I am passionate about. Thank you.

While I don’t think this is necessarily a five minute tip, this is an add on to tip #5. I think when a blogger has a “blog cover” that’s pinnable it’s going to help a lot. There’s quite a few different bloggers and social media marketers on Pinterest, we always love to pin good articles, but we hate it when we can’t find a customized image on the blog post to pin. I think the images that Pat has that are used in Facebook should be the featured images on the top of the blog. They are so beautiful, so pinnable, and it would increase traffic. Darren Rowse of Problogger optimized his digital photography for Pinterest and he saw a jump from 1000 daily visitors to 3000 and that was two years ago when the network was in it’s infancy. A good feature image will do wonders for getting it to spread on Pinterest.

Teri Smyth

Thanks for the super content in this article Pat. I look forward to following you on Twitter and learning more from your articles.
Thanks for sharing!

Hey Pat, thanks for always delivering awesome content brother. Because of you, I just started a blog on Influence that delivers the tools I’ve learned over the years through my experiences and connections with some world changers and influencers that I have been blessed to meet. I constantly forget that some of this stuff has become so second nature to me that I take it for granted that it took a lot of work for me to learn it, so it is so cool that I can now give back what I’ve learned through the years through the power of words on the blog to whoever will read it. I loved #2 above by the way. I love the impact that stories have in people’s lives, so I am totally using that in my next blog on influence man. Thanks again for everything man and keep em comin’! Cheers!

Very nice advice. I really like #5 and trying to build up a FB fan for my niche site. Thanks!

Erika Volk

Thanks Pat. I used these tips to write my most recent post and I already have 10x more unique views then my last posts. Your site and podcast inspire me every time. You are the most helpful man on the web! Thank you.

Thanks for your advice Pat. I just posted my first blog post today. I’m super nervous and excited. Hoping that I can get some traffic to my website. Of course, as you always preach…good content will be my number one priority!

A few months ago my friends reminded me that I wanted to create passive income by my 65th birthday (that’s next year) and before I knew it, I found your site, Pat, and it was just the boost I needed to get in motion. I love receiving your newsletter right in my email box and your sites have ENDLESS tips, resources and supportive encouragement. Finding Smart Passive Income was the best move for me in my business this year. From Carolyn Lucento with Magical Movement Company.com Thanks and have a musical day!

Very helpful tips for every blogger specially the newbies like me. You include everything that need to implement to make a successful blog. I must implement your tips to my blogs. Thanks for the excellent post Pet.